Arthur Chamberlain has problems. His one-man engineering firm is faltering and his pretty secretary Estelle barely notices him. But these problems are put aside when his Manhattan office building falls into the fourth dimension. Madison Square is filled with wigwams and it’s up to Arthur to engineer a way to make his building to fall back to the future. – The Runaway Skyscraper first appeared in the February 22, 1919 issue of Argosy magazine. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

Science fiction

Preface: As the most striking lines of poetry are the most hackneyed, because they have grown to be the common inheritance of all the world, so many of the most noble deeds that earth can show have become the best known, and enjoyed their full meed of fame. Therefore it may be feared that many of the events here detailed, or alluded to, may seem trite to those in search of novelty; but it is not for such that the collection has been made....

volunteers bring you 13 recordings of An Ode by Táhirih (Fátimih Baraghání) (1814/1817 – 1852), Translated by Edward Granville Browne (1862 – 1926). This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 7th, 2010. Fátimih Baraghání (1814/1817 – 1852), also known by the titles of Táhirih (Arabic for “The Pure One”) and Qurratu’l-‘Ayn (Arabic for “Consolation of the Eyes”) was an influential Iranian poet and Bábí heroine from the town of Qazvín. Her legacy is important to Bahá’ís, as well as supporters of women’s rights in Iran. In 1844, she became the seventeenth disciple or “Letter of the Living” of the Báb (1819-1850). As the only woman in this initial group of disciples, she is often compared to Mary Magdalene. From June-July 1848, she attended the Conference of Badasht where she appeared without a veil in public (a shocking statement of women’s rights) and declared that a new religious dispensation had been inaugurated. Coincidentally, shortly after this, the Seneca Falls Convention (an important women’s rights convention) was held in New York on the 19th-20th of July, 1848. She was executed in Tehran in 1852. Before her death, sh...

Religion, Poetry

Ten Days that Shook the World (1919) is a book by American journalist and socialist John Reed about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 which Reed experienced firsthand. Reed followed many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders, especially Grigory Zinoviev and Karl Radek, closely during his time in Russia. John Reed died in 1920, shortly after the book was finished, and he is one of the few Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow, a site normally reserved only for the most prominent Soviet leaders. Max Eastman recalls a meeting with John Reed in the middle of Sheridan Square during the period of time when Reed isolated himself writing the book: ...he wrote Ten Days that Shook the World - wrote it in another ten days and ten nights or little more. He was gaunt, unshaven, greasy-skinned, a stark sleepless half-crazy look on his slightly potato-like face - had come down after a night's work for a cup of coffee. 'Max, don't tell anybody where I am. I'm writing the Russian revolution in a book. I've got all the placards and papers up there in a little room and a Russian dictionary, and I'm working all day and all night...

History

Dead Souls (Russian: Мёртвые души) by Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer, was first published in 1842, and is one of the most prominent works of 19th-century Russian literature. Gogol himself saw it as an epic poem in prose, and within the book as a novel in verse. Despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second part, Gogol destroyed it shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence (like Sterne's Sentimental Journey), it is usually regarded as complete in the extant form. In Russia before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, landowners were entitled to own serfs to farm their land. Serfs were for most purposes considered the property of the landowner, and could be bought, sold, or mortgaged against, as any other chattel. To count serfs (and people in general), the measure word soul was used: e.g., six souls of serfs. The plot of the novel relies on dead souls (i.e., dead serfs) which are still accounted for in property registers. On another level, the title refers to the dead souls of Gogol's characters, all of which visualise different aspects of poshlost (an untranslatable Russian word which is perhaps best ren...

Historical Fiction

Excerpt: In the eleven years that separated the Declaration of the Independence of the United States from the completion of that act in the ordination of our written Constitution, the great minds of America were bent upon the study of the principles of government that were essential to the preservation of the liberties which had been won at great cost and with heroic labors and sacrifices. Their studies were conducted in view of the imperfections that experience had developed in the government of the Confederation, and they were, therefore, practical and thorough....

Most of the translations of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam have been in verse. However, there have been three notable exceptions to this convention; the French translation by J. B. Nicolas (1867), the English version by Justin Huntly McCarthy (1889) and another English version by Frederick Rolfe (better known as Baron Corvo, the author of Hadrian VII), published in 1903. Charles Blanden (1857 - 1933) belonged to the group known as the Chicago poets, the most famous of which was Carl Sandburg. Unlike his celebrated contemporary. Blanden was no innovator, and most of his verse is sweet and melodious, composed with craftsmanlike skill, but often lacking in imaginative fervour. Most of his collections of verse, bearing such titles as The Battle of Love, A Chorus of Leaves, A Drift of Song, and A Valley Muse, were published in limited editions, which have not since been reprinted, and today his poetry is considered of little more than historical interest. One of Blanden’s most engaging enterprises was his verse reworking of Justin McCarthy’s prose translation of the Rubaiyat, which was published in 1901. Blanden uses an eight line verse st...

Literature, Poetry

The book of John stands out among the Biblical writings about Jesus as an eloquent depiction of his deity, composed in detailed and elegant prose. It's believed to have been written by the apostle John near the end of the first century A.D. The World English Bible is a new public-domain translation, retaining the accuracy and beauty of previous translations as well as of the original languages, while achieving a remarkable level of accessibility to modern readers. Summary by Rachelellen...

Religion

Introduction: In several of the dialogues of Plato, doubts have arisen among his interpreters as to which of the various subjects discussed in them is the main thesis. The speakers have the freedom of conversation; no severe rules of art restrict them, and sometimes we are inclined to think, with one of the dramatis personae in the Theaetetus, that the digressions have the greater interest....

We have had many novels about alternate histories, often of the 'What would have happened if Hitler had won the war' type and this is another - except that this one is set in 1913 and the 'William' of the title is that old bogeyman 'Kaiser Bill'. For some reason, at the height of Britain's power, the fear of invasion was common at that time. (See 'The Riddle of the Sands', 'The Battle of Dorking', 'Spies of the Kaiser' or even 'The War of the Worlds') WARNING:- Contains mild anti-semitism and jingoism typical of the period (Summary by Andy Minter)...

War stories, Fiction

In The Four Pools Mystery the tyrannical plantation owner is deemed responsible for his own murder because of his mistreatment of the former slaves who continued in his employment after the war. Jean Webster (pseudonym for Alice Jane Chandler Webster) was born July 24, 1876 and died June 11, 1916. She was an American writer and author of many books including Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. (Wiki)...

Fiction, Mystery

volunteers bring you 9 recordings of Cana by James Freeman Clarke, from The World's Best Poetry, edited by Bliss Carman. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 14th, 2010. Trivia: After hearing the song John Brown's Body, Clarke suggested that Mrs. Julia Ward Howe write new lyrics; the result was The Battle Hymn of the Republic. He published but few verses, but at heart was a poet....

Advice, Philosophy, Religion, Poetry

Next to de Alexis de Tocquville's almost contemporary Democracy in America, Frances Trollope's work may be the most famous (or at least notorious) dissection of manners and morals of the United States. The work was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, and particularly in America, where Trollope was reviled as representing the worst of old world prejudices the new republic (though the criticism did nothing to hurt sales). Accompanied by a son and two daughters, Trollope lived in the United States from 1827 to 1831, spending most of her time in Cincinnati, where she had hoped, when joined by her husband, to open a large department store, which was also to be a place of entertainment and culture. She was, unfortunately, almost entirely ignorant of business practices, and habitually short of money, which her husband was in no position to make up. After leaving Cincinnati she traveled briefly in the eastern states, before returning to England. There is something of a happy ending; Domestic Manners was her first book, and such a success that she turned to writing, producing in her lifetime over a hundred books, which, though they ne...

Fiction, Travel

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, published on March 9, 1776 during the Scottish Enlightenment. It is a clearly written account of political economy at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and is widely considered to be the first modern work in the field of economics....

Economics/Political Economy

Excerpt: The writer of a book which copies the manners and language of Queen Anne?s time, must not omit the Dedication to the Patron; and I ask leave to inscribe this volume to your Lordship, for the sake of the great kindness and friendship which I owe to you and yours. My volume will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a country where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I shall gratefully regard you; and shall not be the less welcomed in America because I am, Your obliged friend and servant....

Contents PREFACE. ........................................................................................................................................ 6 BOOK I THE EARLY YOUTH OF HENRY ESMOND, UP TO THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING TRINITY COLLEGE, IN CAMBRIDGE.....................................................................................11 CHAPTER I AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF ESMOND OF CASTLEWOOD HALL ..................................... 14 CHAPTER II RELATES HOW FRANCIS, FOURTH VISCOUNT, ARRIVES AT CASTLEWOOD........................... 19 CHAPTER III WHITHER IN THE TIME OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT, I HAD PRECEDED HIM AS PAGE TO ISABELLA ............................................................................................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER IV I AM PLACED UNDER A POPISH PRIEST AND BRED TO THAT RELIGION.?VISCOUNTESS CASTLEWOOD .................................................................................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER V MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORATION OF KING JAMES II. ...... 42 CH...

Excerpt: Chapter 1. The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then to utter. Every one who lives any sem blance of an inner life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks; and the best of teachers can impart only broken images of the truth which they perceive. Speech which goes from one to another between two natures, and, what is worse, between two experiences, is doubly relative. The speaker buries his meaning; it is for the hearer to dig it up again; and all speech, written or spoken, is in a dead language until it finds a willing and prepared hearer. Such, moreover, is the complexity of life, that when we condescend upon details in our advice, we may be sure we condescend on error; and the best of education is to throw out some magnanimous hints. No man was ever so poor that he could express all he has in him by words, looks, or actions; his true knowledge is eternally incommunicable, for it is a knowledge of himself; and his best wisdom comes to him by no process of the mind, but in a supreme self-dictation, which keeps varying from hour to hour in its dictates with the variation of events and circumstances....

Contents Lay Morals ........................................................................................................4 FATHER DAMIEN.........................................................................................43 THE PENTLAND RISING A PAGE OF HISTORY 1666 ............................57 THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW................................................................74 COLLEGE PAPERS.......................................................................................83 CRITICISMS................................................................................................106 SKETCHES ..................................................................................................129 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD ......................................................................141 THE YOUNG CHEVALIER ........................................................................176 HEATHERCAT.............................................................................................187...

To the degree that the engineering characteristics of UFOs can be estimated by empirical observation, in my opinion the above-referenced, recently-published book by Paul Hill provides the most reliable, concise summary of engineering-type data available. [1] The data were compiled over decades of research by a Chief Scientist-Manager at NASA's Langley Research Center [2] who acted as an informal clearinghouse for UFO-related data. The strength of the compilation lies in its thoughtful separation of wheat from chaff, and the analysis of the former into coherent patterns, including detailed calculations. Perhaps surprising to the casually interested, under careful examination the observations, rather than defying the laws of physics as naive interpretation might suggest, instead appear to be solidly commensurate with them, as the following discussion shows....

Obsession with genetic engineering segregated humanity into the perfected and defective. Dictated by science and technology, the search for immortality near destroyed the human race. What remains of mankind, struggles to survive in barbaric clans suppressed by Masters and false doctrine. Known as Project Noah, an underground community seeks to restore civilization by rehabilitating those snatched from the surface. An enemy from the past is out to re-establish a plan to cleanse the earth. Assaults on both the surface and underground survivors reveal devastating truths regarding their sanctuary and savours....

An Improved Form for Natural Convection Heat Transfer Correlations, Strojniski vestnik?Journal of Mechanical Engineering 51(2005)7-8, pp 374-378

In the post-Civil War period, our hero Matthew Wilson, during a trip to see his partner in New Orleans, finds himself stranded in the deadly uncharted swamp with no tools or help. On his journey back to civilization, he encounters a deranged domestic prisoner and his wife, deadly wildlife, and many other threats....

The driver cleared his throat. “They take fifteen minutes to get there us half the time. J.S Peterson Carriage has a commitment to quality that never ends.” Although he had just commenced his job, he already had the tired, repetitive tone of someone who had repeated that phrase innumerable times. To the couple's surprise, the horses quickly lurched into a dark underworld of a street. Untamed mosses and vines swallowed up the dilapidated, vacant houses, which bore signs of antiquated engineering and design. They were slowly sinking into the soft ground, as Nature took them back from Man....

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